


Blood on the mountain's flanks.

by rabbitinthewoods



Series: Great mountain beast [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Personified and mystic Erebor, Talk of blood and knives quite a bit, and Dís really wants to kill lots of people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 10:30:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/797442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbitinthewoods/pseuds/rabbitinthewoods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin travels east, on a fool's errand with a fool's number following.</p>
<p>Dís and Dalla are left furious in his wake.</p>
<p>The mountain calls her children home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood on the mountain's flanks.

**Author's Note:**

> I would really like critique on this one. It wasn't difficult to write, per say, but it took a lot.

Dís’ face is as thunder in the mountains, all at once terrifying and awe inspiring. Dalla is a shadowed rock behind her, and it says something of the mood of the room that there is no flashing of teeth from the two women. They are showing restraint. Thorin is immensely glad for that.

They are not fond of his plan, he knows this. Less fond still of the meagre numbers that have pledged to help. When Thorin had held that first council, that first meeting of his few companions, his mother had walked around the gathered dwarves with steps like an earthquake and measured each dwarf in her gaze. Not even Balin had been able to hold her eyes for more than a moment.

Now they both measure him. Thorin is proud, and does not let himself shake. But he does not feel brave.

“My sons.” Dís’ hand is on the axe at her hip, and Thorin hopes desperately she does not use it. “You would take my sons, your heirs, on this quest?”

He swallows, his mouth dry. “They are of a good age, good warriors. We have taught them well, Dís –”

“What battle have they seen outside their lessons? You would take my children and dash them upon the side of the mountain! You would take them and give them unto the dragon’s maw!”

“Never!” He moves forward, claps his sister’s arms in his rough hands. “I would wrest death from them, sister, I would run to meet it myself before I would ever let it touch them.”

The room is silent, and Dís returns his grip, grinding the bones in his arms until he fears they will snap. They stare at each other for a long moment.

Dís sighs. “At least let me come with you.”

“You know you cannot.” Thorin would be glad to have his sister with him, but practicality must win out over preference. “To have such a fine warrior with me would be a boon, but it would rob our halls here of a leader. You and mother must stay, to guard our people, and to lead them after my company when we take back the mountain.”

Dís seems to fold in on herself slightly. “Do not lose my sons, Thorin, or you shall lose a sister as well. I will suffer no warg or orc to live if they harm my children.” Thorin nods, and does not speak against this plan. It would be hypocrisy if he did.

“My child.” Dalla moves to them, arms like steel as she embraces them both, face like one of the great stone statues that lined Erebor’s halls. “You have six months. If we hear no word from or of you, we shall follow behind with all the warriors of our people.”

Thorin goes to object, for this is pure folly, but his mother will not allow it.

“This is not a negotiation, this is a statement of truth.” They stand there, all three that remain of the line of Durin that once dwelt in Erebor, and Thorin wonders what Frerin would say to all this were he alive. Dalla continues. “We have lost too many of our kin, suffered too much. Six months, Thorin, then we shall bring all of the rage of the Longbeard’s to bear on our enemies.”

Dís nods, and Thorin yields.

* * *

They receive a letter from Thorin, when the sun has passed beyond the mountains and over the sea and cold winds are coming down from the north. It is tied to the leg of a hawk, feathers a deep red-brown and demeanour placid. An elven bird. From Rivendell.

Dís both amuses and terrifies herself with thoughts of what must have driven Thorin there.

When the letter is opened and they are subjected to tales of trolls and warg riders Dís nearly grabs her blades and marches out the door right then. Only her mother’s sharp command stops her.

“They are safe for now,” she admonishes. “I knew Elrond, of old. He will not harm Thorin or his companions. He is fair and just, for all he is an elf, and the reputation of Rivendell would sour indeed if the Lord of the ‘Last Homely House’ were to mistreat its guests.”

Dís grinds her teeth, but an inch away from flying to Rivendell in a rage to cleave her brother’s fool head in two. “Trolls.” She shouts. “Orcs. On the road!”

“Yes,” Dalla says quietly, “that is a worry. Let us send a return letter, garner what information we may. Send one also to our people in Bree, and to the Rangers, and old Frolid’s children, if we may find them.”

Dís nods, and by the time cool dusk has bowed out to darkest night she has seen it done.

It is a full two months before they can gather any information from anyone other than Lord Elrond, and even that has to be fought for. They receive many a curt letter from one of his advisers saying – in liquid terms that flatter much but have little substance – that his Lord Elrond is much too busy with matters of most import to be detailing such trivia to a dwarf. Dalla has to write a letter back in terms that speak of blood and knives and young elves in the mountains before they get a letter from the Lord of Rivendell itself.

> _‘Maegovannen, hiril vuin,’_

it opens.

“Presumptuous arse,” Dís grumbles.

Her mother slowly lifts her eyes from the letter and fixes Dís in her gaze. “Quiet please, my radiant one. I wish to finish this letter without a comment on every instance of elvish impunity.”

“I’m still just amazed you managed to get a letter back from him rather than that weedy advisor.”

“You’ve never met Lindir, you have no idea whether he is weedy is not.”

“I do not need to meet him. His words paint a vivid enough picture”

Dalla laughs, long and deep.

The rest of the letter does not prompt such joy.

> _‘Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, King under the mountain, left Imladris six weeks ago, and has gone beyond my knowledge. He went over the High Pass, which is much filled with Goblins and Orcs and not often travelled...’_

“That bodes ill,” whispers Dis.

“Wait, Dís, wait. It may come to nothing. Let us finish the letter.”

> _‘The last I heard tell of him was from Mithrandir, whom you call Tharkun, who told that he intended to part from your son and his loyal company at the border of Mirkwood...’_

Dalla curses. “Mirkwood! Feted, loathsome Mirkwood. What is the boy thinking?”

“I like it no more than you mother, but he is hardly a boy. He must have his reasons.”

Lord Elrond continues, courteous enough in his tone and the information he gives, but he gives a parting warning that sets fear and fire in their hearts.

> _‘...news of the doings within Mirkwood is scarce and odd, being such a dangerous and peculiar place. What news does come out is grave; missives and firsthand accounts speak of servants of evil, and a malicious shadow over the fortress in the south, Dol Guldur..._
> 
> _...yet I would wish, for your sakes, that I could give you more than this meagre offering. I have no news of dwarves emerging from the eastern edge of the forest, and the silence makes me fearful of their fates..._
> 
> _Na lû e-govaned vîn,_ _hiril vuin.’_

It closes.

Dalla raises her head and glares at the stone wall, as if it is to blame for the entire incident, as if it may fill in the gaps of knowledge Lord Elrond cannot.

“Prepare our people.” She says.

* * *

They are met in the Trollshaws by Venyrr, who makes her unceremonious arrival by dropping out of a tree.

“By Mahal child,” Dalla relaxes her grip on her battle axe. “I see you have not forgotten your mother’s lessons.”

Venyrr just grins, her eyes crinkling happily and the canvas of her dark skin broken by the wolfish flash of teeth. She leads them to the entrance of the Hidden Valley and bids them enter with but a small contingent of dwarves, leaving the majority of their army behind.

“Lord Elrond likely won’t mind,” she says quietly, “but some of the others might get shirty. You know how these western elves can be. Some of them don’t even like the three of us being here.”

Dís isn’t entirely surprised; the children of Frodlid and Sídhamar are not precisely welcome in many dwarven communities either. But she holds her tongue from such piercing words. Venyrr and her siblings have proven to be valuable allies, whatever their ancestry.

A guard of twelve are chosen – whether intended as a subtle barb or a subtle compliment, or even both, Dís cannot tell – and Venyrr leads them all through strange paths toward Rivendell. It seems an age that they spend wandering, past echoes of streams that seem near one moment and distant the next, under trees that appear to sway in greeting, by cliff faces that materialize without warning before them and suddenly disappear behind them into mist. It is maddening. It is so utterly elvish.

What she wouldn’t give for the comfort of rigidly ordered streets and clear, bright lanterns.

Just as she is considering chopping down one of these wretched trees and setting it alight, they round a bend and three elves appear ahead of them.

“ _Mae govannen,_ Lindir,” Venyrr says.

“ _He is weedy,_ ” Dís says to her mother, forgoing Westron in favour of Khuzdul, aware of perceptive elvish ears.

Her mother does not see fit to look at her in response. Instead she catches Lindir’s eye.

“Dalla, daughter of Folka, daughter of Bara, at your service.” She bows, keeping her eyes fixed on the elves as she does so. “This is my daughter, Dís, and with us twelve of our company.” The rest of them bow as Dalla gestures at them, deeper than their Lady and stiffer in movement.

Lindir regards her with a warm smile. It even looks genuine. He bows in turn, and his fellows mimic him like a flock of birds following after their leader. “Greetings to you and your people, Lady Dalla. The Lord of Imladris bids you enter in peace and comfort, and waits to welcome you himself.”

“Aye.” Pleasantries over, Dalla marches forward. “I would speak with him directly.”

“That is his wish also.”

“Good.”

The elves array themselves around the contingent of dwarves, and create an odd dichotomy of movement; while the dwarves march and thud like moving mountains the elves glide, lighter than wisps of wind. Venyrr is somewhere in between, inscrutable as always.

True to Lindir’s word, Lord Elrond does wish to welcome them himself. They are guided through yet more twisting paths and then up into Rivendell itself, thin, graceful arches stretching over their heads and pale stone below their feet. Lord Elrond appears from inside a shadowy solar, a tall regal shape seemingly cut from the twilight of the oval entranceway. Dalla orders their guard to wait outside for them, with curt orders not to give insult and not to wander. Then she ascends the stairs, Dís following carefully behind her.

Lord Elrond bows deep, then sweeps his arm inward, toward the solar. _“Maegovannen, hiril vuin._ Please, this way, if you would. _”_

Dalla raises a questioning brow, but bows in turn. “ _Maegovannen,_ _hîr vuin._ ”

The solar is cool, light reaching in dappled waves through strange open windows and wind circling just enough to relieve heated skin. Elrond stops at a table, not so high that a dwarf cannot look upon it easily, and laden with maps, letters, and a jug of wine.

Her mother stops, gazes over the table solemnly. A hand is waved idly when Lord Elrond inclines his head toward the wine, and three cups are filled. It is refreshing, though she could not guess at its quality; wine has never been her drink of choice. Her mother takes a long draft, and as Lord Elrond refills her cup she speaks.

“Your letter was not the most encouraging I have ever received.”

“No, I imagine not.”

“Others, too, have written to me. All say the same; no news of dwarves from Mirkwood. No news from Esgaroth, nor Erebor. All is silent beyond the Misty Mountains.”

“Then perhaps it is good that you came here.”

“Oh?”

Lord Elrond sighs, his face pinched and his eyes locked with Dalla’s. “Thranduil the Elvenking has little enough love for me, yet I have gleaned that he has recently captured spies in his lands, though I know not of what manner they are.”

Dalla is silent, and Dís is barely holding back a scream.

“Do you know anything of them?” She asks, teeth clenched and words sharp.

Swinging his head to regard her, his brows furrowing in thought, Lord Elrond all but confirms her fears. “I know what manner they are _not_. Not elves, or men, nor, I believe, anything of the darkness that lurks in Mirkwood’s southern reaches.”

So it comes to pass, this cruel mockery. Her brother and his company are prisoners in Thranduil’s halls. The fools.

* * *

The blood is already dry and brown when they step onto Erebor’s flanks. They are too late.

It seems this is a refrain in her life of recent months.

Lord Elrond had given them what help he could, then advised them to come around the north of Mirkwood to the eastern edge. The south was a long ways distant, and dangerous besides. They had done as he had said.

Yet it has made no difference.

They are two hundred warriors strong, and yet there is no battle. Loyal and willing, every one, yet there is no King to hold their hearts. Mothers and father, some of them, yet there are no children to greet them.

No children. No sons.

She walks up to the maw of the mountain, and she wishes herself dead. It would be less torture than this.

She shall not go in. She shall not. What does the mountain care of her loss? What comfort may it give? It is a taciturn watcher, having no depth of feeling for those lost in its defence. Dís glares at it, unseeing. Her legs are weak, and between one breath and the next they give out, knees crashing down upon inflexible rock. Her eyes fill, tears smearing everything to a dull grey. Her throat constricts, twists. Then sharp sounds fill her ears. Piercing. Painful. It is her. She is wailing, shrieking. Descending into unchecked misery.

She screams. She has nothing left. She is as a beast. A beast, scratching, writhing. Her soul is fled. Just the beast remains.

A shadow falls before her eyes. Another who wails. Her mother. They wrap themselves together, immovable grief, behind them their two hundred loyal warriors sing. Songs that should not be sung. Should not be needed, for there should be no dead. Yet they had arrived too late.

They mourn for an age.

When she has emptied an ocean through her eyes and the grave-songs have faded, her mother grips her arms with raging claws and drags her up.

“In,” her mother says, “the mountain bids us enter.”

And so she is led like a feckless child through the great entranceway, feet dragging. Their warriors follow behind, a rearguard, she thinks, though against what she has no inkling. The mountain looms around them now, and as they descend ever deeper and her mind clears a noise begins to scrape against the edge of her hearing.

“Amad?” She says, asking for a question as much as an answer.

“Aye, child. Do you hear it? The mountain. She grieves with us.”

Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth, throat dry and aching. “Amad?”

Dalla looks at her, face streaked with drying tear lines, eyes sunken and dark. “You were yet young, when we fled Erebor. Listen. You shall hear her.”

Having no will to object, Dís does as she is asked.

The noise grows.

She looks behind her, to their people. Not a one of them has open mouths. They are silent. She looks forward again.

The noise grows.

She looks around, wondering if there is some system – copper tubes perhaps – that are carrying sound from far away. There is nothing. The walls are bare save the signs of the dragon’s passing. She looks forward again.

It is almost...a song.

She hums without intending to, and her mother joins in, flicking her a look full of knives and blood and ash.

“The mountain,” Dís whispers, “she sings.”

Dalla nods, and the hall opens out into the hollow cavern of the throne room. The mountain booms inside Dís’ head, her voice a warm grey tendril leading Dís forward. The floor drops away around them, and memories from her youth make themselves known. She has been here before. The floor thronging with dwarves, wall bright with torches, and the throne bearing her grandfather, King Thrór, son of Dáin, son of Náin, King under the Mountain.

The throne bears someone different now. The mountain moans.

Dís’ spine straightens, and she looks upon her cousin. He has no right.

“Dáin,” she says, and the space after his name echoes with his unacknowledged ancestors.

To Dáin’s left are his honoured advisers, and to his right a strange, small figure, surrounded by the remains of her brother’s company. They are all silent. Expecting her to bow the knee, no doubt.

He greets them in turn, and begins a litany of sympathies and platitudes she has no interest in hearing.

The mountain heaves under her feet.

“Dear cousin,” she says, and his teeth clink shut. “You are in my seat.” The mountain roars.

The gathered people stare at her. It is an open challenge. Dáin’s eyes are wide.

Her line is dead. Say it. Her line is broken and finished, a husk. Say it

He does not.

With Dalla’s wide wolf-grin at her back and the voice of Erebor in her head, she feels as a great mountain beast, protecting her den. Her people.

“I suggest you get up.”

Dáin cedes her throne with a bow and not a whisper of dissent.

Dís sits, her face as thunder, terrifying and bright, and none can hold her gaze.

Dalla looks but for a moment, and then Dís witnesses her Lady-mother descending to one knee. “Hail,” she bellows, and all others in the cavern sink down, “Dís, Queen under the Mountain, daughter of Dalla, daughter of Folka.”

All assembled echo the call, but Dís cannot hear them. Her head is filled with the roar of the mountain, with the blood and ash in her home, and with the three cold bodies in Erebor’s deeps.

Hail, Queen under the Mountain. Hail.

**Author's Note:**

> Dáin isn't really a bad guy, but the idea of him getting the throne over Dís always confused me. The dwarves don't seem sexist in much of their society, so I've rationalized it by thinking that as her descendants are dead, her line has ended; the throne should pass to a 'living' line, so to speak.  
> Only my Dís don't put up with that crap. The mountain calls who she will, after all.
> 
> Frodlid, Sídhamar, Venyrr and the other two unnamed siblings are all OCs. If you read 'A Hunter Among Hobbits' you'll see a bit more about them. I just enjoy dropping them in occasionally.
> 
> 'Maegovannen, hiril vuin' - elvish for 'Greetings, my beloved Lady.'  
> 'Maegovannen, hîr vuin' - elvish for 'Greetings, my beloved Lord.'  
> 'Na lû e-govaned vîn, hiril vuin' - elvish for 'Until we next meet, my beloved Lady.'
> 
> Headcanon; Dalla only hates some elves - she was older when Erebor fell, and an old friend of Elrond's besides. Hence why she calls him 'Beloved Lord', which winds her children right up.


End file.
